This invention relates to the application of dyestuffs and other liquids to textile materials and, more particularly, to an electronic control system for printing of textile fabrics having relatively porous surfaces, such as pile carpets.
Textile fibers and fabric materials have long been colored with natural and synthetic dyes, and, in particular, printed by color decoration of the surface or surfaces of the materials in definite repeated forms and colors to provide a pattern. Such color printing of textile fabrics has been accomplished in various ways. Earlier forms of printing used carved blocks charged with colored paste pressed against the fabric. Subsequently, speed of printing was increased by development of roller printing wherein moving fabrics are sequentially contacted by engraved metal rollers each containing a different color dye to form the desired pattern thereon. Textile fabrics are also printed by sequential contact with screens each having a porous portion of a pattern and carrying a particular color dyestuff.
More recently, it has been proposed to print textile fabrics, including pile carpets, by the programmed spraying or jetting of plural colored dyes onto the surface of the moving fabric. Typical processes and apparatus are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,804,764 and 3,502,044; and British Pat. No. 978,452. Generally, such apparatus consists of a plurality of dye applicator bars or manifolds spaced along the direction of movement of the textile material and each containing multiple dye nozzles or jets extending transversely across the moving material. Each jet may be activated by suitable electronic, pneumatic, or mechanical means to dispense dyes onto the moving material, and pattern control to apply the dyes in a desired sequence may be accomplished by various conventional programming devices, such as mechanical cams and drums, coded punch tapes, magnetic tapes, computers, and the like.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,443,878 and 3,570,275 disclose specific means for applying jets of dyes to print a fabric by use of continuously flowing dyestreams which are deflected by a stream of air or a mechanical deflector to permit impingement of the dyestream upon the fabric or recirculation to a dye supply reservoir. Control of such systems to form printed patterns may be accomplished by various of the aforementioned programming means.